I was so consumed by it, the crowds of tourists around me melted away and I was awash in the grey seas that expanded before me. How did the artist make each and every brush stroke so perfect, how did they give the horses such depth and character? This painting in front of me now was exactly what I wanted to do with my own work, to capture the very essence of nature armed with nothing more than oils and brushes. I didn’t care what Augustin said about art being modern. I wanted to paint something real and to have it be as good as this art that hung before me now. Finally, I tore my eyes away from the work itself and I stepped forward at last so that I could read the plaque beneath:

Rose Bonifait, Grignons de Camargue, 1853.

***

“She has this way of doing their tails, so that the colours of the hairs are all very different, taupe and mustard, charcoal and white but together they mingle into grey and it looks so lifelike …” I raved on to Françoise as we walked back upstairs heading up and into the glass pyramid space so that we could exit through the gift shop to leave the Louvre.

I had not stopped talking about Rose since I saw the painting. I was still processing its significance, I think. It was an amazing work, and what made it even more amazing for me was the date on it – 1853. So Rose had painted it after she became paralysed.

Françoise, though, was barely listening to me. She was whingeing about the Louvre again. “The crush of people to get out is even worse than it was to get in!” she complained as we pushed through the doors.

“It’s not just the crowds,” I said. “There’s something else going on outside.”

We were trying to leave, but for some reason everyone else was pushing past us in the opposite direction, back inside the museum.

“Get inside!” Somebody shouted at us. “Get inside now!”

Suddenly the mad surge of people coming at us was no longer just a crowd of annoying tourists. They were a panic-stricken mob! There were people with terror in their eyes, fighting to get in – running and shoving, all of them desperate to get inside the building. We were stuck in the crowd and I was calling out to Françoise. I’d lost her completely and then I felt her hand grasp mine and pull me forward and suddenly the both of us were out on the street and there were more people, pushing us, shoving us.

“Françoise?” I felt panic rising in me now too. “Françoise? What’s going on?”